Survey To Help Education Continuity Plan

Press Release

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth Affairs, Fisheries and Agriculture is conducting a survey to gather information about remote learning access in the Territory.

Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth Affairs, Fisheries and Agriculture, Mrs. Carolyn Stoutt Igwe said, “We are gathering information for our continuity of education plan and we are trying to get a better sense of remote learning access for parents and teachers in the event that we have to make further changes for the new school term.”

These new changes are due to closure of school after Cabinet made the decision on March 17 as a measure to reduce the spread of COVID-19. All public and private schools, pre-schools, day-care centres and extra-curricular activities have been initially closed with effect from Thursday, March 19 until Friday April 3. Students will then have their Easter break beginning on Monday, April 6 until Sunday, April 19.

The Ministry of Education will engage further planning for online teaching and learning in the event the mandatory closure of school persists beyond the Easter break. Several platforms for teaching and learning will be used. These include: Cisco Webex, CXC Notemaster, Flow Study, Google Classroom and Class Dojo.

Chief Education Officer, Mrs. Connie George, stated that training has been ongoing in both public and private schools with Google Classroom for teachers and students. Training in the use of the Cisco Webex platform, an online platform that can engage teachers and students with interactive classes, online lectures, vocational training, tutoring, and group projects is also taking place. This platform, working in tandem with Google classroom, will stimulate learning and group collaboration through virtual breakout sessions and evaluate class effectiveness with integrated testing, polling, and reports. Once mastered, the Chief Education Officer sees this as being a very effective means to successful online teaching and learning.

The online classroom will require that teachers and students have access to an appropriate electronic device and internet and to gather this information, the Ministry of Education has issued a parent survey.

In addition to the survey for parents, the Ministry will also be launching a similar survey among teachers to ascertain their level of preparedness.

Since the closure of schools, the Ministry has been planning for the eventuality of schools remaining closed after the Easter break. For more information during the curfew contact the ministry at 468-9491.